There was a little bit of everything on sale to bargain hunters at the June 5 Tiger Treasures rummage sale: a table loaded with baseball caps, stacks of carpet, rows of small household appliances that once helped make a residence hall room a little more homelike for Mizzou students. There were even old Halloween costumes.
Until a few years ago, all this and more would have been discarded when MU students cleaned out their dorm rooms and left for the summer. But the nearly 1,400 shoppers who flocked to MU’s annual rummage sale took it all off their hands and got more than a few bargains in the process. They also kept nearly 15 tons of cast-offs out of the local landfill and raised $14,000 to benefit area United Way agencies, says Steve Burdic, MU’s sustainability coordinator.
Now in its fourth year, Tiger Treasures is sponsored by the MU sustainability office, Campus Facilities and United Way as a way to recycle what departing students would normally throw away. The event is free, but early bird shoppers pay $5 to get in at 6 a.m. to get first crack at the merchandise. “Those people are pretty active shoppers,” Burdic says. “There are lots of good bargains.”
Some of the hot ticket items at each sale include small appliances, housewares and clothing. As the annual sale has become established, more people are including it in their early summer calendar. “It’s actually turned into quite a bit of fun,” Burdic says.